Dept. of Carney-Speak, 'Modalities' edition

2/6/13 1:52 PM EST

“I don’t have any modalities to report to you on specific meetings," Carney said, responding to a question about the president's plans to meet with Congress about the drone strikes.

"Modality" is a linguistic classification, with many subclassifications, pertaining to perception and the formation of reality (through language and thought), or, more specifically, to the possibility, impossibility, contingency or necessity of a proposition. So, for instance, "President Obama might meet with Congress tomorrow," "President Obama will meet with Congress tomorrow," "President Obama will not meet with congress, ever," and "President Obama will meet with Congress later on the condition that..." -- all these are different modalities (some epistemic, some circumstantial, etc.)

This term is most often used in the fields of philosophy, linguistics and literary theory -- James Joyce's "ineluctable modality of the visible," in Ulysses, usually provides a rich starting point for such discussions -- but is less often cited in politics.

Why Carney used it today is a mystery. Had he said, “I don’t have anything to report to you...," as he often does, he could have made the same point, only in a more direct and less complicated fashion. In fact, one could argue that by not reporting anything, Carney was keeping open the possiblity of a future meeting, therefore creating a modality: the possiblity of a future meeting. This is known as affirmation through negation.

If Carney was insistent on using "modalities," it would have been more accurate to say, "I don’t have any new modalities to report to you on specific meetings."

Or, again, he could have not said "modalities."

UPDATE (4:25 p.m.): Carney emails:

"Ineluctable modality of the visible" might actually have been in my mind, since it’s a phrase I cannot shake. I just wish I had more opportunity to refer to people who “eat with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls.”

As for my usage today, I wasn’t aiming so high. I was allowing that while this is an ongoing process, I couldn’t describe any modes, manners or forms of the ongoing process or its outcomes. I definitely could have not used modalities. But then you wouldn’t have been able to write a post channeling your inner Derrida.